Making a blender release

 > datatoc splash.jpg

Commit src/splash.jpg.c and src/blender.c and (in another commit we use more repositories at this moment) release/VERSION

3. Beos

Reboot the beos machine. Beos doesn't have a stable nfs implementation. If you don't reboot, be prepared for all kind of errors about files not being vissible to beos. i.e.

/bin/cp: text/README: Unknown Error (-2147418112)

in this case text/README was changed after the nfs mount.

You can reboot beos remotely:

> telnet beos (usercode and password are beos)
> shutdown

After the reboot login again and mount your home directory. Mine can be mounted by:

> mount_nfs repo:/home/frank /boot/home/frank 1007 1007

Where 1007 is my uid on the server. After that I do a:

> cd /boot/home/frank
> source ./beos.sh

beos.sh contains:

  export HOME=`pwd`
  export SRCHOME="$HOME/develop/source"
  export MAKEFLAGS="-w -I $SRCHOME --no-print-directory"
  export NAN_TARGET=BLENDER2
  export PATH="$HOME/bin:/boot/home/config/bin:/bin:/boot/apps:/boot/preferences:/boot/beos/apps:/boot/beos/preferences:/boot/develop/tools/gnupro/bin"

4. Cleanup

Remove you ~/obj directory to make sure that all old objects are removed.

cd ~/develop/lib && cvs update
cd ~/develop/release && cvs update
cd ~/develop/source && cvs update

cvs status |& grep Status: | grep -v Up | less

5. Logging in on all machines

What Frank usually does is this:

Start a putty on a windows machine. Putty is a SSH client. With putty I start a ssh session to the server.

Once on the server I start up screen. Screen gives you multiple 'windows' in the same terminal window. You can find the binary in ~frank/bin/screen . Copy my .screenrc for some nice default settings.

In my .tcshrc I have defined a prompt that changes the window title of the putty client. That way you can see to which machine you are currently connected.

From within screen I start up 9 different connections to the compile machines. I can switch to the different sessions from the keybord. But the best thing is: I can close my connection to screen and reconnect later on from a different location and have my sessions with their output back. So I can start the compiles at work, and check from home what the result was.

Anyhow. Ask for a demonstration if you would like to use the same setup, or start 9 different xterms or...

Login to the different machines. Currently these machines are:

- server    (freebsd-3.4*)
- quad      (irix-6.2)
- ito   (2) (irix-6.5)
- glibc     (linux-glibc2.1.2-i386*)
- alpha     (linux-glibc2.1.3-alpha)
- linuxppc  (linux-glibc2.1.1-powerpc)
- ultra     (solaris-2.6-sparc)
- win2k (1) (windows)
- beos  (1) (beos)

*2 compiling on ito over nfs is terribly slow if you use the Eindhoven server. Instead you can use fw-adm as a fileserver.

6. Starting the compile

cd ~/develop/source && make debug all

on ito make might point to the SGI-make for you. Use gmake there.

7. Testing

While you're making the release and testing blender files you'll probably want to test with the blender debug versions.
Before you release the final blender executables you might want to test the binaries in the distribution files as well.

On the server in /home/develop/releasetest you'll find some test files. Each file contains a short description on what kind of test should be performed. NOTE/TODO: rendertest.blend is corrupt

8. Making the distributions

cd ~/develop/release && make

alpha always gives an error message:

  tar: blender2.04-linux-glibc2.1.3-alpha/blender: file changed as we read it

Make a new distribution by hand. On the server do:

 > cd ~/obj
 > tar cvf  2.10/blender2.10-linux-glibc2.1.3-alpha.tar   blender2.10-linux-glibc2.1.3-alpha
 > gzip --best  2.10/blender2.10-linux-glibc2.1.3-alpha.tar
 > rm -rf blender2.10-linux-glibc2.1.3-alpha

Another error message that you will get is on BeOS. Zip reports:

 zip warning: couldn't write complete file type

You can ignore this one.

9. The windows installer

First you will have to have made the zip distribution in win2k (make in develop/release). This creates a directory with all the input files needed for the installer. Now go to win2k, connect all its cables ;-) and open an Explorer window. Go to C:\Blender\Installer:

First open 01.welcome.rtf with Wordpad and edit it. There's a version number in this file. Change the version number, save the file and quit.

Next open 00.installer.adx, the Installer definition file:

Click on Next and change the version number:

Click 25 (!) times on Next. Change the version number twice in the window below:

Three more times Next until you're here:

In this windows you can check all settings. Click 'Show Setup Wizard' for an Installer preview. When satisfied click on 'Create'. This creates server:~/obj/blender2.xx-windows.exe AND saves the current settings to disk, overwriting the old settings. Test the installer. When satisfied rename the .exe file on the server to the correct version number and move it to the correct location.

10. Uploading

All distribution files now are collected in a subdirectory in ~/obj . Copy these files with scp to your home directory on www.blender.nl . These files have to be copied to two different locations later on. And if you're going to overwrite existing files (in case off a quick fix), you don't want users end up with corrupted downloads when you scp them directly to their download location.

 > scp ~/obj/2.10/* www.blender.nl:

I have a symlink in my homedirectory on www.blender.nl that points to the ftp directory: ftp -> /home/ftp/pub/. After I've uploaded the files, I copy them to the ftp directory.

 > cp blender* ftp
   - or -
 > cp blender* ftp/.private
   - or -
 > cp blender* ftp/beta

11. Limited release

Usually we do a small pre-release to test blender in the field. Windows and Linux are the most appropriate platforms for this. Upload the distributions to ftp/.private and post this in the news & chat discussion area.

12. Making release notes

To be done...

13. Full release

Copy all files to the ftp directory. Copy them to the http-download directory as well:

 > cp blender* /home/ftp/pub/
 > cp blender* /usr2/local/www/data/download/packages

Make an announcement in the bugs, news & chat and gameblender discussion areas.

14. Mail users

Collect all e-mail addresses from release_log.txt from people that reported a bug that is fixed in this release. Mail them that there is a new release and that a bug they reported has been fixed.

Copy all e-mail addresses in a file named addresses. It should look like this:

------------------------
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
------------------------

------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 15:02:38 +0100 (CET)
From: Frank van Beek 
To: TO_ADDRESS
Subject: blender 2.10 release
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Hi all,


Last week blender 2.10 was released. One of the bugs reported by you has
been fixed, or an enhancement request done by you has been implemented in
this release.


You can read all about it here:

 http://www.blender.nl/showitem.php?id=113


Most releases can be found here:

 ftp://ftp.blender.nl/pub/beta/


Happy blending !

Frank.

---
Not A Number,  van Eeghenstraat 84,  1071 GK Amsterdam,  the Netherlands
Blender, free 3D software for the new millennium   http://www.blender.nl
------------------------

 > set [email protected]
 > cat mail | sed s/TO_ADDRESS/$i/ | sendmail $i

 > foreach i (`sort addresses | uniq`)
 >    echo $i
 >    cat mail | sed s/TO_ADDRESS/$i/ | sendmail $i
 > end

15. Tagging

Use the correct tag name and add the tags with:

cd ~/develop/source && cvs tag blender-2-11-release
cd ~/develop/release && cvs tag blender-2-11-release
cd ~/develop/extern && cvs tag blender-2-11-release
cd ~/develop/lib && cvs tag blender-2-11-release

16. Finishing touch

Update this document. ;-)